Anybody ever had one of these before? It's a DBX brand "3BX III" dynamic range expander. I've never had one of these before (and didn't even know what the fuck it was for when i bought it), but upon a little research, I've discovered that this component is for making tapes (any kind, including reel-to-reel) and LPs sound more like compact discs. Anyone ever tried anything like this before? Here's a couple o' pics...
its also known as a "noise Compressor" .. you are right it is ment to make tape recordings sound more like studio quality. It has no practical use anymore, who uses casstette?
There's also this badass metal show that comes on every night that I've been listening to religiously since it's inception... The "new rock station" in town that replaced the horrid rap/R&B/etc. station has "Mandatory Metal" every night at 10PM, and they're the first station in SA to actually play Ministry - fuckin' love this show - when I google'd this thing, I found out this component will help radio stations sound better, too... That'll probably be the first thing I use it for... I'll look into patching it through the computer, too - got some shit on vinyl that I don't feel like buying again (or downloading, of course).
Hey IMC - check out www.freebeerandcatfish.com and click on the "mandatory metal" link to see what kinda shit they play... It's great, they play at least one Slayer song a night, and so far I've heard Obituary, King Diamond, Merciful Fate, Carcass, In Flames, Metal Church (and of course, Ministry)... Wish they had a web broadcast, I'd recommend it to everybody...
they have a simalar show in Raleigh, called Chainsaw rok, every friday night starting at 10 PM until saturday 10AM
Christ, man... You need to call them and inform 'em what we're doing down in San'An... Maybe get that shit broadcasted every night instead...
What this old hardware did, was to recover peaks that were squashed during gain riding (Compression) and lower sections of the music / audio that were raised in amplitude due to this gain riding. This unit separated the audio spectrum into 3 frequency bands to prevent breathing etc... {Gain riding -- Say compression} This old gain-riding was done to allow sound with to much amplitude / dynamic range to fit on the old time records or cassette tapes, it also raised lower sounds above the noise floor. Old records, when encoding the audio were limited by the depth and height of the grooves. If an excessively loud passage was present the high-end turntables tracking was thrown off by the tone arm jumping up into the air. And the static / dust and scratches were louder than the softest passages of the music. Tapes had similar problems, these include over magnetic saturation due to over driving during high passages and tape hiss due to ferro magnetic domains on the recording. This tape his was again, ofter louder than the softest passages. Gain riding was done to get away from these distortions and limited dynamic range. I have hundreds of old 33 1/3 RPM records, 45 RPM Records and Cassette tapes. I sold my old Reel to Reel tapes many years ago. However if I want to record these and recover the dynamics by bringing back the peaks and lowering the soft passages, I still need the 3BX.There are no VST plug-ins on the market that does this in 3 or more bands. Nor do any have this capability and the ability to lower and raise at the same time.
I'm happy to have helped ! The 3BX had limited controls, these included the Expansion slider and it effected all 3 bands. The other control was for the Transion level (slope) and again it effected all 3 bands. This unit could produce 90 db range. The adjustment most commonly used was to set the yellow led's to come on at the quietest portions of the music. The red led's would then come on at the peaks. If the source was 50 db to start with the total recovery would then be approximately the specified 90 db. The basis was the manufacturer had the ratios preset to prevent over adjustment of the settings. Another less mentioned unit was the Pioneer EX-9000. This unit had individual sliders for the 3 separate bands, this provided more control. Low band started at 50 Hz, Middle band started at 500 Hz and the Upper band started at 5,000 Hz. The Music characteristics (slope) was set either for soft or for hard. The specified dynamic top was 96 db. The soft setting was mostly used for Classical music as there was less compression when recording this type of music. The hard setting was used for Rock and Roll, Country and Western etc. However sometimes different settings provided more wanted response. The amount of dynamic gain was relative to the source material. Conventional records (Not DBX encoded) were on the average order of 45 db to 50 db max. Tapes were in the same ball park range. That is unless you used Chromium or metal tapes, which could be up to 60 db range in dynamics. To bad there are not and VST plug-ins, as they could be made to adjust the slope for each band and the other dynamics for each band. For instance the lower band could have a slower slope / attack and the dynamics (decompression) could be adjusted for overly applied low frequencies. Most of the VST plug-ins that I have are much more complicated than these earlier hard ware implementations and therefore are more time consuming but allow better results.
More clarification on the two units: The DBX 3BX attack/release time varied with the frequency band and appears to be effected by the expansion setting. The Pioneer EX-9000 is listed as having 4.7 ms Attack time and the release time for the Hard setting is 68 ms. The setting for Soft is 2.7 ms. It appears that the two companies had different ideas about what should be fixed and what should be variable. They both work ok, and depending upon the source material and device, one at times can be better than the other, it varies !
It's amazing to see the prices this unit fetches on greed-bay... Makes a good case for me to sell it...
I still actively use my 3bxIII. It actually makes those god awful mp3s sound like listenable music. I bought it back in the early 80s in Germany when I was in the Army. DBX made some durable stuff......it's still going strong after close to 25 years of continuous use!
What's your audio setup like? I use a lot of Kenwood. KR-1000B (Star Wars) receiver, KA-8100 amp, 3 pairs of KL-777S, 1 pair KL-777X, and 1 pair KL-999X. I might have to hook this thing up and see what it does to mp3s before I decide to sell it.
My set up for MP3s is as follows: Requires a 3.5mm TRS to RCA cable 3.5mm output from my imac (running itunes at about 1/3rd volume) to the 3bx (connect to "from preamp tape output") "From preamp tape input" to my amp (Peavey XR800F). Bridged output to a single PV115 (once again, Peavey) 2-way speaker enclosure. 3bx settings: Expander to Post, monitor to Source, Expander and Transition to about 30% each, and Impact restoration at about mid-range. Give the 3bx a chance before you sell it, I think it really helps.
Sweet! Wasn't expecting a reply so quickly. I wonder, since your source is an 'amplified' feed off the iMac, is the restoration of the sound needed because of the lack of a straight "Line Out" feed? That's something I notice (and loathe) about using an iPod, for instance. Seems like the newer electronics don't offer a straight Line Out option, and it takes a bit of trial and error to find that 'sweet spot' to feed the amp.
Yeah, since it is quasi-amplified, I keep the imac output relatively low. I know it's not the perfect set up, but it's an improvement. I still have to play with the amp settings for different songs (and especially between different genres). ....and before you say anything, no, I'm not stalking this thread. I seem to get email updates from fugly about every 7 or 8 minutes!
Sorry that most of 'em are likely notifications of posts from spamming maggots. I think these pics are up elsewhere on this site, but I uploaded them again the other night for another site, so it's easy to copy/paste...
